Outrealm
by Chaos Storm
Summary: The adventures and misadventures of the heroes Nalhcal, Blaze, Reheirdon and Natsu, on the hunt for adventure, loot and most importantly, alcohal. Rated T for realistic fantasy violence (no slash, lemons or even romance... probably)
1. Prologue

**A/N: Yay, my first story! I've recently been DMing my first d &d game and one day decided to write a story based on it. Now, I've decided to share it here! I hope you enjoy! (PS. I have song recommendations for different parts of this fic to listen while your reading it which I might edit in later)**

I

In a land known as Eragon, four humble adventurers made their journey through the many planes and continents in the world. This was a time of stryfe, power and war. This was a time of heroes. Each one of these four were unique, powerful individuals of unknown potential.

Blaze was a dragonborn, giving him the outward appearance of the most powerful and feared creatures across the land. This also gifted him the ability to breath flames. Long ago he was born with pure arcane magic running through his blood. A miracle of nature. Those like him were called sorcerers, wielders of raw magic.

Reheirdon was an Eladrin, a high elf of the legendary Feywild, an alternate dimension parallel to the natural world. He was able to temporarily connect the two worlds, allowing him to slip between the dimensions and appear numerous feet away. He studied for years to become a Sha'ir, a wizard of elemental magic.

Natsu was yet another dragonborn, a common sight in the region of Veluna. However he followed the path of the artificer, a specialty developed by the family of d'Cannith in the Last War. Artificers were arcane tinkerers, crafting potions, machines and even, at times, life.

Finally, Nalhcal was a Warforged, mechanical people built for war and destruction. Many were lost, destroyed and deactivated after the Last War, very few surviving to this day. Nalhcal himself spent centuries living with nature and becoming a Warden, guardian of the wilds.

One day, each of these heroes wakes up to find a mysterious glowing artifact. These oddities spoke out to them, telling them to find Ollentia, a city of Veluna. And so the adventurers went. Little did they know that this would be the start of a great adventure, one that would constantly push them to the brink and challenge them to become the greatest heroes this world has ever known and confront what no one else ever could have dreamed in a thousand lifetimes. An adventure like no other, an opportunity to change the world and it's inhabitants. This was only the beginning of an event that would change all of existence itself.


	2. Chapter 1: Beginings

**A/N: My first official fanfiction! I've written fanfictions before, but... they were bad. Very bad. Anywho, I thought it made the most sense that my first published fanfiction should be the novelisation of my first d &d campaign, I posted an earlier version of this roughly 3 months ago, but I decided it was too short and completely reordered the chapter system, combining many chapters together and now each chapter will equal about one level in game.**

I

Four different people slowly made their way to Ollentia, all with the same purpose of mysterious artifacts in mind. During this time however, an old wizard waited in his tower, and watched through an orb of scrying. Slowly, a smile rose onto his face.

II

Natsu happily trod along an old traveler's road, but his smile fell as he put his hand on the handle of his long sword. That most certainly wasn't Glacies Ignis, his precious signature longsword that he himself enchanted with ice and fire. He must of left it back at his house… now that he thought about it, did he ever turn off the oven? Well, he wasn't going to back now (and face his mother) so he could only hope.

Sadly, none of the four noticed the plume of smoke rising back on the horizon.

III

Upon arrival into the village, the adventurers were brought together by the artifacts. But on first contact, Blaze tripped over among the most malicious of pebbles, into Natsu, into a banana cart, into a banana vendor, into a shady looking guy trying to sell boomerangs, into a guy who almost bought a very overpriced boomerang.

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" Multiple people screamed at Blaze, mixed with a; "MY BANANAS!" Blaze sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

"Heh, heh… sorry."

"SORRY DOESN'T CUT IT!" Yelled a man with an unidentifiable accent. What did he sell again?

"Well how about I buy one of your overpr- I mean very fairly priced boomerangs there?"

"'Mmm… acceptable." The man said reluctantly with sour look.

"Yeah!" Blaze said, practically throwing money at the man and grabbing the boomerang, then walking off without anymore trouble. The others followed him.

"Heh, he's going to be SO mad when he finds out those are bronze coins painted gold." Blaze smiled slyly. Natsu cracked up and Reheirdon brought out one of his patented chuckle-smirks. Nalhcal simply said; "More vodka money."

And thus, a friendship was born.

IV

These humble four spent the next few hours getting to know each other and learn each others abilities. Soon they split up and explored the village, to discover the purpose of the artifacts that had brought them there.

Reheirdon was walking around the edge of town when he discovered an odd-looking tower, but upon investigation, a barrier of solid wind blocked his path.

"Interesting." Reheirdon murmured before moving on.

The three others wandered around town, occasionally buying things and searching for clues, and eventually, the sun dipped into the horizon.

Crowds of people began to flock to the center of town, where some sort of event seemed to be taking place. The newly-made allies followed the crowds to a stage. Suddenly, magical blasts of fire shot up into the sky, exploding in vibrant bursts of reds, blues and purples.

Shortly thereafter, a man walked out onto the stage declaring this a celebration for his newborn son, next in line to be leader of the village and was met with overwhelming cheer. But then, very suddenly various members of the crowd drew weapons and the civilians making up the majority of the area screamed and fled. Two guards stepped forward to guard the village leader and his offspring, but they were clearly only there to intimidate, with no knowledge of the weapons that they were holding.

Somewhere off to the right, the last rays of sunlight caught the top of the nearby tower, shining onto the soon-to-be battlefield. The four assembled in front of the tower, equipping their weapons. Natsu drew his longsword, Blaze unsheathed a katar, a dagger and a wand slid from Reheirdon's sleeves into his hands and the ground around Nalhcal shaped itself into a warhammer.

Time to be heroes.

The thugs began to charge the town leader, screaming wildly and waving their weapons above their heads… that is, until one was suddenly tagged in the back of the head with an orb of green bubbling acid. The man screeched in pain before falling over, dead. A single last drop of acid dripped from a katar.

"Why don't you come and play with us a bit first?" Blaze yelled over causing the bandits to halt in their tracks.

"YAAAARGH!" One of them yelled and turned on his heel barreling back towards them.

"I got this!" Natsu called, lurching forwards at the bandit, locking blade and club as he cast an enchantment over his longsword to increase it's damage and strength.

Reheirdon stepped forward and drew back his dagger, honing in on a bandit heading towards him and let fly… in the wrong direction. The dagger soared backwards into the singing wind barrier not far behind and was redirected at double power back at Reheirdon, catching him in the neck. He gave a small yelp and collapsed forwards into the ground.

Nalhcal strolled forwards and gutted the bandit coming at Reheirdon with his hammer, he then spun around and launched that bandit off into Natsu's combatant, knocking him over and freeing Natsu up to administer Reheirdon a curative admixture from his belt. After removing the dagger from his neck the curative admixture did it's job and closed the cut up in moments.

"Thanks." Reheirdon said weakly as Natsu pulled him to his feet.

"Just doing what I trained for." Natsu replied easily.

On another side of the now-battlefield Blaze darted towards another thug and channelled draconic fire down his blade, clashing weapons for mere moments before Blaze landed a fatal blow.

Now only the bandit leader, garbed in heavy armours and weapons, remained.

"HYAAARRRGH! I WILL ANNIHILATE YOU!" He screams.

"Bit over the top there." Reheirdon said snarkily, tossing a glowing ball of fire at the armoured thug which immediately exploded into a plume of flame on his shield.

"YOU CAN'T DEFEAT ME!" The enraged bandit declared, molten drips of metal dripping down his shield. Nalhcal walked up and swung his hammer through the damaged hunk of metal and into the heavily protected stomach of the would-be assassin. Suddenly the earth started to envelope him, closing in around his ankles. "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!" He cried as Nalhcal stepped to the side and Natsu charged up with his longsword, electricity humming around him and decapitated him, finishing him once and for all.

"LOOT LOOT LOOT LOOT!" Blaze suddenly started chanting and they looted the corpses of the bandits, discovering over 100 gold pieces, some weapons and mysterious note hidden in a pouch on the thug leader's jacket. The letter was written and signed by the head priest of a nearby kobold encampment inside a cemetery hiring the mercenaries to murder the leader of Ollentia and his son at this very celebration and return back to them for payment.

The group quickly came to a decision; they were going to hunt down that kobold and end his threat… and maybe take all his loot along the way.

V

A day later and the newly crafted adventuring party made it to the Ollentia cemetery fully armed and ready to go. On the other side of the blackened graveyard, four men stood over a coffin, three piling atop a single crowbar as one stood to the side and berated them.

"Move faster ya' useless slugs, a slime could do this job!" The one to the side screamed at the other three, his spittle flying into their faces. "We gotta' time-frame to upkeep here!" The man had an accent that clearly hailed from the Boneslicer Isles, an island that was once used to banish criminals to. These people clearly wanted to keep up the reputation.

"Wadda' ya' think we're doing you rotten bag a'... potatoes." Responded the clearly slower of the bunch who was wearing a strange bright purple shawl.

A cloud of fog suddenly descended and rolled past the graveyard, shiney dew glistening off the trunks of long dead trees.

"You guys are really ruining the atmosphere here." Reheirdon sighed, somehow having encroached 3 feet behind the grave robbers.

"GAAAAAAH!" One screamed, dropping his crowbar.

"Don't worry guys, I got this." Natsu whispered to Blaze and Nalhcal just a bit too loudly. Natsu stepped forwards, a confident look about him. "We have come here to kill you! ER… With friendship!" Everyone stared at him with a variety of expressions; exasperation, fear, and possibly some mild disappointment.

The first to recover was the leader of the would-be graverobbers as he drew a shortsword and charged the nearby Reheirdon who nimbly dodged the first slash, but sustained a gash on his shoulder at the second.

Nalhcal, hammer in hands, charged in and with a mighty bellow smashed it into the pillager leader, sending the man flying backwards into a mausoleum, cracks indicating his impact.

Reheirdon leaped backwards as he slid his wand and dagger into his hands, and with a few practiced swishes and jabs, a red-orange fireball shot from the end of his wand and into the group of three grave-robbers, exploding in a large plume of flames.

Blaze shot forward and with two quick swipes of his katar, now coated in a silky layer of emerald green acid, cut down two of the robbers. Natsu, a step behind him, splashed some curative admixture on Reheirdon's shoulder, before driving his longsword into the second to last of the grave pillagers.

Nalhcal honed in on the last one and picked him up by the neck. "I show mercy now, but cross again…" he drove the man into the wall again, cracking it further, the man made a whimpering noise before Nalhcal tossed him to the side and he lost consciousness.

"Now, where's the hideout? Is there perhaps some hidden switch, or secret puzzle..." Findle asked to seemingly no one in particular as he scurried about the area searching for clues.

"Found it!" Blaze called as he strolled into the mausoleum of before, everyone turned and noticed the giant wooden sign with the words ' t' scratched in sitting right in front of the building.

"Oh." Reheirdon said with clear disappointment as he trailed the others inside and down a set of spiral stairs "Now that's just disappointing."

They popped out of the slimey and cramped stone staircase and into a small room and to the side, two kobolds were chattering aimlessly in front of a door holding weapons at theirs sides.

They didn't notice in time the hammer about to bash their heads in.

Grinning, Nalhcal kicked the door in and strode into a room full of boxes. The four glanced at each other. Lootin' time! They ripped apart the boxes and barrels finding only useless junk collected by the kobolds, until Nalhcal tore the top off the final box.

Inside was a block of swiss cheese encased in a block of solid ice.

"Hello." The cheese spoke to them in their minds. "I'm Gladius. The years of being trapped in this box have helped me develop telepathy. Now it's time to stretch my wings." Wings unfurled from the chee… Gladius? And it rose up to eye-level. "I will be joining you on your journeys, now, do you have a containment unit for me to stay in by chance?" Nalhcal stared at the cheese for a moment before opening a slot in his forehead. The… Gladius flew in. "Now if you don't mind," Gladius started, telepathy somewhat muffled by Nalhcal's head. "I have a twenty-hour sleep cycle to upkeep."

"Well okay then." Reheirdon stated.

They moved on.

The next hallway contained a pair of archers easily killed and several more rooms in the cave were easily cleared. Soon they came upon a central room containing a dozen kobolds gathered around a fire, weapons laying at their sides. Reheirdon took a deep breath and shot a scorching blast towards the fire, but unlike the usual orange-gold glow of the fireball, it took a dazzling golden-white that shot towards the fire and caused a massive detonation to disintegrate all the kobolds.

"Woah." Natsu murmured as Reheirdon just activated a critical hit, moments of divine energy flowing through oneself to enhance whatever they were doing by an incalculable amount, but these were incredibly rare and despite all attempts, could not be forced. So when one did happen it was something to marvel at.

VI

After rampaging through the entire underground network, they came upon one last door.

"RAAH!" Nalhcal cried as he kicked the door across a room, bowling over two kobolds. "ME HAMMER SMASH!" He raised his hammer and smashed it down onto the shield of another kobold, smashing through it and crushing the smaller being. Two more kobolds remained in the room, one appeared to be the leader if the decorative dragon-inspired armour and staff were anything to go by.

"Bring it in!" The leader screamed and four more kobolds arrived out of a side room, dragging along a white dragon wyrmling with azure blue eyes in chains. Once in the open, the dragon immediately twisted around, launching some of the kobolds away, then it gutted one and tore the head off the two remaining. "Hahaha, yes my blue-eyes white dragon! Go! White-lightning attack!"

The dragon opened it's mouth and launched a beam of white crackling electricity at Reheirdon and Blaze, who just barely danced out of the way.

"Why do I feel like there's something I'm not catching here?" Reheirdon murmured to Blaze

"I don't know, just kill it!" Blaze responded quickly, smiling as he launching a spell at the dragon, which quickly waved it off.

"Hah, you call that dragon's breath!" Natsu taunted the dragon. "Watch this!" Natsu opened his mouth and gathered energy from within himself… and three seconds later his face exploded and he was launched backwards. "...ouch."

From that day on he would swear he heard the dragon laughing at him in the distance.

Blaze resumed the fight immediately, summoning his best spell; Chromatic Orb. A massive ball of changing colours formed in front of his raised wand. Before it lurched forwards and smacked directly into the dragon, flashing a crimson red before detonating in a ball of fire encompassing the dragon.

The remaining three kobolds were dealt with as Reheirdon summoned the wind around them and shaped it into a blade, Natsu ran up and added a sigil to it; the icebound, creating the temporary blizzard blade and Reheirdon charged forwards, slicing apart the first of the three remaining minions.

Nalhcal ran towards the dragon but was halted as the tribe commander blasted him with an immobilising magic, leaving blaze to fruitlessly fight it by himself.

Meanwhile Blaze just dodged another white lightning attack and just barely had the time to cast explosive pyre, causing the last minion kobold to go up in flames before dodging a bite to the face.

This new opportunity allowed Natsu to run up and break the leader's immobilisation spell while providing the distraction needed for Reheirdon to sneak up behind him and run him through with the blizzard blade.

Nalhcal, released from the spell, focused his nature energy and took on the form of the Winter's Herald, causing him to grow a foot and antlers to sprout from his head, now radiating cold energy, he charged towards the dragon and smashed his hammer down on it's head, killing it.

Natsu cast an enchantment on his own weapon as it started to burn with silky red flames and he ran forwards and decapitated the tribe leader.

The group stood there a few moments before dropping to the ground in exhaustion, Nalhcal returned to normal size and Reheirdon's wind blade soon dissipated.

"Piece of cake!" declared Natsu, returned by the smiles and chuckles of his teammates as they stood and prepared to leave.

This was the first adventure of the group,and one that would define and solidify them as a team. From here on they would go through ups, downs and everything in-between, but they would always remain definitively, friends.

VII:

 **A/N: Yes I threw in a yu-gi-oh reference in my first session, I'm sorry I just couldn't help it, it fit so perfectly with what I had planned! Anyway, the new chapter system I was talking about above will fit in with a new 'book' system as shown below.**

 **Book 1 (Part 1)**

 **Prelude**

 **Chapter 1**

 **Chapter 2**

 **Chapter 3**

 **Chapter 4**

 **Chapter 5**

 **Outakes/Omakes**

 **Book 1 (Part 2)**

 **Chapter 6**

 **Chapter 7**

 **Chapter 8**

 **And so on. Also a warning for things to come, some of the things that occur in this story made some of my players cry and left others in depressive states. Sadness will happen. Be prepared.**


	3. Chapter 2: All the Buzz

The townspeople were joyful at the return of their heroes, and the four adventurers happily absorbed all the praise.

"Oh yeah, it wasn't too much trouble, heh heh. So how about a reward?" Blaze asked… 'modestly'

"Oh most certainly!" The town elder exclaimed, handing Blaze a sack of weapons and gold. Blaze's eyes lit up with greed.

Very _righteous_ greed.

Well… probably.

The artefacts that had brought them together suddenly started glowing once again in their ethereal blue, and it's silky voice, leaning towards neither masculine or feminine told them to go to the old wizard's tower.

"Hey old guy!" Natsu called out to the town elder.

"Yes?" He responded, patience being tested.

"Do you know if there's an old wizard around here?"

"Yes, you must mean Lord Jung. He lives in that big tower at the edge of town."

Findle sighed. "I guess should've seen that one coming."

They continued onwards to the tower.

Reheirdon knocked politely on the door to the tower.

…

…

…

No response.

Nalhcal kicks the door in. Everyone stares at him.

"Me no like wait."

The rest of the group shrugs and walks in. They walk down a hallway full of bookshelves to a staircase, where they ascend a floor to another hallway where an ominous shadow loomed ominously at the end ominously. Ominously. Reheirdon panicked and began casting explosive blast, but before he could finish, Nalhcal backhands him, launching him out of a nearby window.

"Hello!" An old man with wrinkled skin and kind eyes greets them cheerily, ignoring the disappearance of Reheirdon.

"Hi." Nalhcal takes the lead.

"Ah, I'm glad you could make it, let me put on some tea!" The old man, seemingly Lord Jung tapped on the letter of a book, causing it to glow and the bookcase covering that portion of the wall fading away leading to a dining/kitchen area. The old man beckoned them inside and sat them at a dining table, and then hurried over to the kitchen and set a kettle of water over a flat surface being heated by some kind of magic. The five waited in comfortable silence until a screeching noise began to emit from the kettle, the water boiling. Soon, everyone had cups of tea.

Reheirdon opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the wizened figure interrupted. "You would like to know why I summoned you here."

How did he-

"You see, there is something coming. A threat like no other. I am one of the five grand wizards of Eragon, Lord Jung."

Reheirdon, Natsu and even Blaze were taken aback. Reheirdon was the first to respond. "T-the grand wizards!? But you're said to be powerful enough to rival lesser gods!"

"Indeed." Was the grave response.

"But, what could be powerful enough that even you can't fight it?" Blaze answered seriously.

Lord Jung looked off into the distance, thinking deeply. "You know what I specialize in, I assume?"

"Well," Reheirdon started. "They say you uncovered an ancient magic that deals with Fate, allowing you to control the universe to some degree."

"Yes, this 'Fate Magic' is what made me the most powerful of the five grand wizards. It not only gives me some control over the universe, but some degree of foresight as well."

Blaze started. "And this… foresight, something's coming."

"Yes, I don't know what, but I do know, that we are all fated to die."

"What!?" Everyone sans Nalhcal (who didn't really understand what everyone was talking about) screamed.

"Yes, that's why I gathered you four. I manipulated Fate to draw you to Veluna, and gifted you those blue stones, which have now expired. Everything up until now was a test." Jung stopped for a moment, letting everyone process the information, then continued. "Some, I've discovered, seem to be completely outside of fate, not factored into the destinies of the world, not having any kind of preset destiny themselves, causing ripples across the predetermined universe. So I gathered all that I could find in Eragon. I think you know who they are."

"Us." Reheirdon responded.

"Yes, you are quite literally the only ones who can save the world. I'm afraid I must leave you now, but before I go, I will tell you this; at the end of the Noontide War of one-hundred years past, we five wizards created a vessel, a great vehicle and gifted it to the Arkhosians before their ultimate defeat at the hands of the Tieflings of Monoxia. Go talk to the king of Bael Turath, the capital of Monoxia, it's likely they recovered the vessel. I shall see you again." Lord Jung of the Fates faded away.

VI

"So, basically." Reheirdon had pulled out a map. "We need to get here." He pointed to one end. "And we're here." he pointed to the other end of the map depicting the continent.

The newly created adventuring party, defiers of fate were staying at the best inn in the town of Ollentia, it was at a discount due to being the heroes of the town, but even though it would be a subpar inn anywhere else, it was criminally expensive here, even with the discount.

"You see, ladies," The owner of the inn, who had a garish and nearly indecipherable accent told them. "Thems new kings be puttin' a real big tax on ye' ol' lads and laddies of this land."

"Bad king guy?" Nalhcal asked.

"Er, ye' er' supose me lad."

Nalhcal nodded sagely. "Lad."

The inn owner was left very confused by the robotic man.

Back in the present, Blaze made an observation. "Well ok, we just need to go through the Dwarf place," he pointed to the Dwarven countries of Varuska. "And over these mountains, then we're basically there!"

"Ehhh, that's so far away." Natsu complained.

"Actually, those are the Garulean mountains, and are territory of the giants, going through there would not only be risky, but there aren't even any paved roads, making travel by carriage much harder. It would be easier to go around through Tern, the Elvish kingdom of Eragon, and pass through the Dynasty of Yaban, ruled by the Deva. Then we make our way North to Bael Turath." Reheirdon spoke slowly and drew a line of their path with his finger, as if explaining this to people with the intelligence of five-year olds, which, he probably was.

"Ugh, we get it, stop patronizing us." Natsu was miffed.

"We walk to place?" Nalhcal asked for confirmation.

For what he suspected would not be the last time, Reheirdon sighed. "Well, technically we'll be buying a carriage and a couple horses, but yes, we'll be going to a place."

Nalhcal nodded in approval.

"Alright, everyone in agreeance, say aye." Reheirdon concluded.

"Aye." Said Reheirdon and Blaze, while Nalhcal screamed "LAD!" at the top of his lungs, er, breathing mechanisms.

"Uh, Blaze?" Reheirdon asked, his patience waning under the strain.

Blaze looked up from the dagger he'd been fiddling with "huh? I wasn't listening."

Just as Reheirdon looked like he was going to explode, there was a knock on the door. Reheirdon calmed back down and sighed. "I'll get it." At the door was the owner of the inn. "What can I do for you?" Reheirdon asked politely.

"LAD!" Nalhcal once again screamed, before Natsu clobbered him in the back of the head in an attempt to get him to shut up, before Nalhcal turned around and batted him across the room with one hand.

"'El me lad, seems yer time be up fer stayin' here." The inn owner said warily.

Reheirdon was outraged, "But we paid for three days! It's only been one!"

"Yes, 'ell ya see, I don' have no mo' money, so, yer' gonna' have to skedaddle here."

"Fine. We'll go." Reheirdon declared icily, striding back into the room. "Alright everybody, gather up your stuff, we're leaving." Reheirdon stuffed a few books into a knapsack as well as his now prised 'neck dagger'.

Natsu stumbled to his feet on the other side of the room and complained. "Aw, but we just got here, now we're going to have to walk places." Reheirdon turned back and shot him a glare, until he started packing.

"I'm going and buying a cart and horses with the money the town gave us, please don't… burn this place down or whatever I'm sure you're all thinking." Reheirdon slammed the door behind him.

"No promises!" Blaze yelled. "Man, what's got his knickers in a bunch?"

"Heh, knickers." Natsu giggled.

"You really are annoying aren't you." Blaze deadpanned.

Natsu looked offended. "Hey at least I'm not stupid like you!"

"Ok, you want to go, wyrmling?" Liquid flame began to drip from Blaze's fists.

"Bring it! You couldn't even touch me!" Natsu pulled out a short sword that began to glow blue with a light enchantment.

"No fight." Nalhcal walked over and tapped his fists on both their heads, dropping them like stones.

VII

The two volatile dragonborns awoke to a rumbling sensation.

"Ugh, where am I?" Blaze asked the nothingness of his vision, as he tried to regain his senses.

"No Nalhcal, we're supposed to be going North! This is South you fool!" Reheirdon's voice pierced through the fogginess.

Nalhcal seemed to reiterate a statement. "Horsie say go this way."

"But the map-"

"Bad map."

There was a crinkling of paper and Blaze opened his eyes to see a wadded ball that was once their only map go flying past his face and out into the wilderness and landing in a small pond, rendering it unusable.

"Uh, what's going on here?" Nalhcal, who was at the front of the carriage, as well as Reheirdon turned back to look at the newly awakened Blaze.

"This buffoon is driving us the wrong direction! We're headed south to Frazione when we should be headed northwards to Sophrase." Reheirdon argued his case. Blaze turned his head to Nalhcal.

"Horsie say this way."

Blaze shook his head and sighed. "Welp, that answer is good enough for me!" and then he dropped back into unconsciousness.

Moments later, Natsu raised his head and spoke somewhat sluggish. "Something about horsies and the wrong direction?"

"Nalhcal's driving" Reheirdon said by way of explanation.

"Well, why don't you just drive?" Natsu asked reasonably, albeit with a whiny inflection.

Reheirdon scoffed "That's below my station, and you and Blaze were unconscious, so…"

Natsu just gave him a look like 'seriously dude?' and then his head thunked back down to the carriage floor.

VIII

Blaze and Natsu were awake by the time they arrived Frazione, the carriage rumbling into a mostly destroyed town.

"Man, this place is a ruin, what happened here?" Blaze asked nobody in particular.

Nalhcal suddenly turned his head towards the sky and yelled "Gladius! Analysis!" and the cheese sprung forth from his forehead.

"It appears, based on the patterns of destruction, the marks left behind and what buildings seem to be destroyed… Let's see here… the prints seem to be fairly deep punctures… The ruins seem to have been ripped open and trampled… And the primary buildings destroyed were residential homes and markets. The most logical conclusion is that this town was ravaged by massive insectoids."

"Insects? That's pretty stupid, I was kinda hoping for something actually interesting like a dragon or something." Natsu kept petulantly whining whilst everyone ignored him.

"Hmm, I've heard of something like this before.." Reheirdon began to ponder. "Yes, we had these back in the Feywild, especially in some of the more rural areas. Some strands of insects (Especially in the Feywild) at some point adapted to counter certain types of magic, usually by absorbing it. This most commonly causes them to grow to enormous sizes and sometimes gain an elemental subtype. However this does not answer the question of why we're here Nalhcal."

Nalhcal shrugged. "Horsie say so."

"Whatever, this is not our problem, let's g-" Reheirdon was interrupted by a wild scream.

A commoner wearing simple, strained cloth had somehow encroached on the bickering four and after getting within five feet began to scream at the very top of his lungs. Nothing they could do would calm him down and after ten whole minutes of the commoner screaming with no pauses, not even to breath, he stopped. The eerie silence washed over everyone as they stared at the man, even Nalhcal was mildly disturbed.

"This…" The man said. "Will explain everything." A few seconds passed and the man's head exploded, his body falling to the ground.

"What the f-" Natsu, who was saying what everyone was thinking, was conveniently censored by a sudden rumble of the earth. Followed by another. And another.

"It appears," The cheese helpfully added. "That a few hundred giant ants are currently invading the town. As a side note, I've pinpointed the location of a strange magical energy."

Blaze piped up. "Well I'm not dealing with three-hundred ants, so let's go to that magic source Gladius. Oh hey a butterfly!" Blaze went chasing the butterfly. Reheirdon moved to go get him, but decided that that was beneath him, Natsu didn't care and Nalhcal didn't notice… probably, no one ever quite knows what secrets lie within the Nalhcal.

BUUM, BUUM, BUUM!

The ant army was entering town and the wayward three took this as the best moment to discover the what the strange magic was, completely abandoning Blaze and the town.

IX

As Natsu, Reheirdon, Nalhcal and the flying frozen cheese approached the magic source, streams of thousands of ants could be seen climbing into a verdant forest, coalescing somewhere just beyond the tree line.

Suddenly a frenzied scream alerted them to the presence of another individual.

"BAD BUTTERFLY, BAD BUTTERFLY, BAD BUTTERFLY!" Blaze suddenly burst out of the trees, soon followed by a massive glowing butterfly. He flipped around and formed a ball of acid in one hand, the other channelling it through a rod. With a grunt he whipped it back at the butterfly, catching it in the wing and disabling it's flight capabilities. The butterfly landed on the ground and, swinging it's other wing, shot a gust of wind directly into Blaze, sending him flying backwards and landing at Natsu's feet. "Oh hey guys, how's it been?"

Reheirdon sighed, "What a buffoon." he threw a condensed ball of fire at the butterfly, which whipped it's wing again to create a small whirlwind which combined with the fire blast to create a typhoon of flame that began to tear it's way back to the four adventurers. This would also coincidently create a forest fire that would lead to the creation of a young fire elemental grizzly bear that would one day be named smokey, which mean only REHEIRDON could have stopped that forest fire.

But that's a story for another day.

"Uh, whoops." Reheirdon looked at least somewhat sheepish.

"Great, now you're the 'buffin' or whatever you said, you Haploid." Natsu retaliated… probably overcompensating for something.

"I don't think you know what haploid means, Natsu." Reheirdon asked skeptically

"Actually," The cheese started. "A haploid is a-"

"No Talkie now." Nalhcal charged forwards, summoned his hammer from the earth and jumped into the burning whirlwind, only for the typhoon to dissipate once Nalhcal entered the form of the winter's herald, a blast of icy energy ripping the air attack apart and cooling the flames. His wooden parts began to grow more bark-like and seep over some of his metal plating, he also grew moose-like horns and the ambient temperature dropped by about ten degrees. "BAD FLAPPY THINGY!" He smashed his hammer downwards into the butterfly, crushing it into the ground.

"Well that ends that!" Blaze announced happily and began to laugh, getting to his feet. "Well, onwards!" And with that he led the charge into the forest, soon coming upon a large ant-hill.

"I'm not going in there, I'll get my designer robes dirty and-" Reheirdon was cut out in the middle of speaking by Blaze.

"Thanks for volunteering!"

"Hey what's that supposed to mea-" Once again cut-off, Nalhcal picked Reheirdon up by the hood of his robe and lobbed him into the hill and down the tunnels, Reheirdon screaming the whole way.

"Hmm, sounds solid enough," Blaze pondered "Hey Reheirdon! You good down there!"

"I hate you!" Came an echoing voice.

"Sounds good to me!" Blaze exclaimed before hopping in after him, Nalhcal and, somewhat reluctantly, Natsu as well.

Once they hit even ground, they found Reheirdon crumpled in a pile of robes as he got up and (Somewhat unsuccessfully) tried to dust himself off.

"Alright you're going to buy me new ro-AAHH!" Reheirdon stopped mid-sentence to leap out of the way of mandibles attempting to cut his head off. "OK, can I complete ONE sentence today please?" Reheirdon whipped out a wand and his trusty neck dagger, with a few flicks of the implement he summoned a large hand of flame and, mimicking his own hand, he tried to crush the giant beetle-thing that attacked him. The flames manage to sink it into the ground a bit and snap two of it's legs, but then it's abdomen lit up a fiery red-orange and it suddenly shot dozens of embers at Reheirdon, who was immediately more concerned with his designer outfit then himself, ripping it off and stamping out the flames on it, before treating his own first degree burns. "Stupid fire." He muttered under his breath.

"Hah, you call this fire? Eat this!" Natsu reared his head back and flames gathered in his mouth, a small explosion suddenly enveloped Natsu's face, blasting him onto his back. "Ouch…" he moaned.

Blaze sighed, before pulling off his own dragon's breath, scorching the beetle even through it's own fire affinity. Nalhcal charged forwards and slammed his hammer into the staggering beetle, crushing part of it's thorax and damaging a leg, as well as increasing it's overall weight, causing it to sink into the earth. Reheirdon threw another scorching burst spell at the crippled insect, slowed by another ember-spray, but completely overpowered by another beetle arriving and spitting fire as well, a wave of flame overtaking the entire cavern tunnel back at Reheirdon and Natsu.

"I got it!" Natsu yelled victoriously, as he got up and swept his short sword through the flames, completely dispelling them. His sword glowed light blue and had the signature rune of the icebound sigil spell. A sudden 'WHOOSH' noise cut threw the air as Natsu threw his sword, at the end of it's flight connecting with the fire-infused abdomen of the newly arrived fire beetle. The volatile mixture of magic exploded outwards, silencing the beetle and knocking everyone else backwards. Just as the original beetle was about to build up for one more fire-spray, Blaze thrust his rod outwards and muttered a spell, ice crept up the beetle and bound it in frost. Nalhcal dropped the butt of his hammer onto the insect and shattered it.

Natsu panted. "Wow, that really bugged me. Get it, get it? Cause bugged like-"

"Stop. Bad pun, no one like you." Nalhcal cut-off and insulted Natsu, attempting to shut him up.

Needless to say, it failed.

Natsu was highly offended "Hey, everyone likes me! Right guys?" Blaze and Reheirdon stared back at Natsu unconvincingly, but offered nothing to the conversation. "Yeah… yeah that's right, they like me! Eat that Nalhcal!" Everyone was once again silent. "Let's, uh, just start exploring."

After a short, but awkward minute of walking, they arrived at a split in the path.

"Good adventurers go-!"

"Right." Blaze started excitedly, but was cut-off as everyone ignored him and walked ahead, led by Reheirdon.

"Sometimes I'm really unappreciated." Blaze muttered to himself as he caught up with the rest.

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Natsu suddenly came down the tunnel, dashing past Blaze. Soon followed by a massive (by normal standards) bee. Really it was just closer to about six times the size of a normal bee, but the really odd part was it's legs, while proportionate to it's body, were that of a human.

"What the hell is wrong with that bee?" Blaze asked, very confused.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Natsu yelled, before smashing into a wall while he wasn't looking where he was going. The bee descended upon Natsu. Blaze made to move, but then the bee started… purring?

"Is… is that bee purring?" Blaze, even more confused now, asked.

Natsu was at a loss for words. The bee looked up at him with puppy-dog (bee?) eyes before floating down into his knapsack and taking a nap.

"What happened here?" Reheirdon asked, arriving on the scene.

"A bee cuddled Natsu and purred." Blaze responded dully.

"Wait… what?" Reheirdon was understandably and much like Blaze confused.

"I don't know." Blaze said. "I don't… know."

Natsu, still sitting on the ground got up and continued down the tunnel.

"Where's he going?" Reheirdon, asked, mildly alarmed due to Natsu not making a stupid remark.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Blaze yelled.

They stood together a minute, contemplating reality, before continuing after Natsu.

After walking for what felt like hours, the tunnels finally opened up into a larger alcove. A purple glow illuminating the room. Stepping in, the glow was evidently coming from a large purple crystal in the middle of the room, surrounded by five giant ants.

Blaze immediately initiated the combat before the ants even knew what was happening. A ball of acid sizzling through the closest ant's natural chitin armour and into it's blood. The ants all began to click their mandibles and swivel towards the adventuring party.

"Well if that's not disturbing, I don't know what is." Reheirdon stated with a shiver, before launching his signature scorching blast spell into their ranks, severely burning some of the insects.

"You do bad, not enough smash." Nalhcal adamantly said as he walked towards the ant sizzled by the acid orb and smashed it into the ground with his hammer, the remaining chitin cracking and crunching beneath the weight.

Natsu smirked. "Hah! That's pathetic! Watch this!" Natsu reached for his sword, only to realise it wasn't there. Flashbacks of it exploding inside the fire beetle erupted in Natsu. "Uh, crap." Natsu began to sweat.

"Here! I can fight at range for now." Blaze threw his katar to Natsu, who barely caught it.

Natsu began to fumble with the odd weapon. "How do you use this thing… OW! Hey I cut myself on this thing! Your blade sucks Blaze!"

"Give it back if you don't want it!" Blaze yelled, agitated as he slowed down an approaching ant with frostbind.

"Whatever." Natsu sighed moodily as he rushed an ant with the katar, now enchanted with magic weapon.

Reheirdon sighed as he swept a giant flaming hand through the ants he had already his with scorching burst, further crippling them. Why couldn't they all just get along? Just as he was casting a final scorching blast on the ants, Nalhcal charged in and brought small waves of earth around him, battering the six-legged foes with planetary material, finishing them off.

"Hey! That was my kill!" Reheirdon told Nalhcal off.

"No, all kill is me kill." Nalhcal stared with emotionless eyes into Reheirdon's own angry ones and he was just disturbed enough to not continue arguing.

"Uh… fine." Reheirdon turned away and walked over to find Blaze and Natsu bickering.

"Your blade still sucks!" Natsu said, handing it over.

"No it doesn't I find it to be quite effective actually." Blaze said haughtily.

"How are you even supposed to hold it?" Natsu asked irritatingly.

"Like this." Blaze channeled liquid fire down the blade as he cut up an ant carcase.

"Whatever." Natsu was unimpressed as he walked away.

Reheirdon made eye contact with Blaze and the stared at each other for a moment.

"So," Blaze started. "Are you going to go on some spiel about how Natsu is really just misunderstood and we should actually like him for some reason?"

"Nah, he's just really effing annoying." Reheirdon answered honestly.

Blaze grunted an agreement.

X

Back in town, the four found it to be nothing but a wasteland, with only a couple buildings and an orphanage/housing center remaining. The main wave of insects (and a few arachnids) had passed, but a gang still inhabited the ruins of the town, scavenging what little was left.

"Man, twin fire beetles, a few ants and a… giant centipede? Gods that's creepy." Blaze shivered, before steeling himself and lighting up his katar with acid. "Time to have some fun!" He screamed as he charged into battle, glowing with critical hit energy and decapitating the first ant.

Reheirdon exerted his magical energy and created a wind blade, immediately chopping it into the side of an ant, causing it to click it's mandibles aggressively. Nalhcal clicked his eyes closed for a moment and focused his primal magic, opening them back up they resembled more the eyes of a hawk as he swung his hammer above his head and knocked a spider that was hiding in the trees into the earth and crushed it. He spotted two more such spiders. Too bad he didn't really care enough about anyone else to tell them about it.

"AAAHHHH!" Came Natsu's scream as a spider descended upon him from the shadows of a destroyed building.

"Be more get good." Nalhcal said to Natsu as he walked past.

"Not even going to help me. Wow." Natsu said dryly before screaming in pain as the spider bit into his shoulder, poisonous venom spraying everywhere as the spider injected it into Natsu's bloodstream. As his left hand went limp, Natsu brought up his dominant hand carrying a short sword and stabbed through the arachnid's head and throwing it off his body, before dropping to the ground and pouring his trusty curative admixture, the artificer's signature spell/creation, into his wound.

As the massive centipede began to encroach on Blaze, he opened his mouth and the air began to crackle with static electricity as energy gathered inside his body, until he shot a torrent of lightning out at the many-legged invertebrate. It reared up and fell backwards to try and block the strike, failing utterly, before it retaliated with a cloud of noxious gas. Blaze inhaled, his dragon lungs allowing him to hold his breath longer and easier than any non-dragon-like creature, but was failing due to having just expelled a breath attack. Suddenly a blade of wind energy cut through the gas and dispelled it. Reheirdon standing triumphantly over the defeated corpse of a massive ant. He sent his blade forwards towards the centipede before firing the scorching blast spell, sending it through the wind blade and causing it to explode into a spiral of flame that drilled into the centipede, killing it.

The two fire beetles descended upon Nalhcal, catching him in-between two blasts of fiery embers. His outer shell was charred and damaged by the time they were done, but once they were, Nalhcal was angry. He lifted his hammer above his head and smashed the first one six-feet underground. Literally. Then he spun around and swung his hammer into the second one, alight with the golden power of critical hit. The beetle was sent spiralling out of the town, falling apart as it did so.

"Well then." Blaze said, staring along with the other two adventurers at the angry robot. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

Reheirdon laughed at that, while Natsu just grunted and whined for attention about his injury in the battle.

All he got for that was getting left on the ground as the others mounted their cart, ready to continue their travels.

"Wait!" An old man hobbled past the prone Natsu and to the adventurers getting on the cart. "Thank you for all you have done here. Now, we can start rebuilding this great village." The elder smiled at them as he gave them an old hat with pile of gold inside it.

"Your ver-" Reheirdon was just about to graciously receive the gift before Nalhcal slapped his hand away and took it, dumping out all the coins and donned the hat.

The old man laughed at the antics. "Oh, recognise the symbol do you?" On the hat was a golden plate engraved with a hammer and pickaxe, the symbol of Varuska and their political party of Moradinism. "Wait a minute…" The wrinkled man started, "Aren't you Nalhcal, The D-"

He was cut off by Nalhcal yelling "Time go!" and jumping in the driver's seat, whipping the horses to gallop away into the sunset.

This was of course undercut by Natsu running behind the cart screaming "HEY, WAIT FOR ME!" as the cart sped off in front of him.

 **A/N: This was a joy to write, remember what I said about the chapters getting longer? Yeah... 5000 words. This is the longest chapter of Fanfiction I've written yet and it may or may not hold that title for awhile. I'm not sure. Every chapter I realize just how dialogue based this story is, and that probably won't change anytime soon. There are a few things I wanted to talk about actually, so I'm just going to get it all out of the way with this A/N.**

 **1\. Expect this chapter (and precious ones) to be** **re-uploaded** **with some updates, as I got a new Beta (the term means editor, for those that don't know. She also doesn't use this site and is just a personal friend)**

 **2\. For those that wonder why, say Nalhcal doesn't use Winter's Herald more often, it's because this is based off 4th edition and it works off the; at-will, encounter, daily, system and Winter's Herald can only be used once per day. Actually, I think I might just start posting a list of everyone's ability's for clarification here every chapter.**

 **Reheirdon:**

 _ **L1:**_

 _ **At-Will:**_

 _ **-Scorching Blast**_

 _ **-Flame Arrow**_

 _ **Encounter:**_

 _ **-Burning Hands**_

 _ **Daily:**_

 _ **-Wind Blade**_

 _ **L2:**_

 _ **Daily:**_

 _ **-Feather Fall**_

 ** _Blaze:_**

 ** _L1:_**

 ** _At-Will:_**

 ** _-Acid Orb_**

 ** _-Burning Spray_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Frostbind_**

 ** _Daily:_**

 ** _-Lightning Breath_**

 ** _L2:_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Dragonflame_**

 ** _Nalhcal:_**

 ** _L1:_**

 ** _At-Will:_**

 ** _-Thorn Strike_**

 ** _-Weight of Earth_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Roots of Stone_**

 ** _Daily:_**

 ** _-Form of the Winter's Herald_**

 ** _L2:_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Eye of the Hawk_**

 ** _Natsu:_**

 ** _L1:_**

 ** _At-Will:_**

 ** _-Magic Weapon_**

 ** _-Thundering Armour_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Burning Weapons_**

 ** _Daily:_**

 ** _-Icebound Sigil_**

 ** _L2:_**

 ** _Encounter:_**

 ** _-Arcane Springboard_**

 **These don't include their racial powers like Dragon's breath, but whatever. Those are all encounters.**

 **3\. Did you know centipedes aren't insects? I only just realized that while writing this. They have too many legs. I guess I just kind of always associated them with insects in my mind.**

 **4\. Expect more chapters soon. Sorry I kinda went on a psuedo-hiatus there, but there will be many updates in the near future, a.k.a every couple weeks. Same goes for my other fic(s)**

 **There was more I wanted to say but… I forgot. And this A/N is getting long anyway.**


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